Recently, Tucker Carlson had on two Republican governors to talk about why they would not carry out the wishes of the voters of their states.
In South Dakota, Governor Kristi Noem vetoed a measure that would have prevented biological males from competing against females in girls sports events. Her excuse was that the NCAA would sue the state and prevail, so she preemptively surrendered to what she thought would be the NCAA’s position. Noem claimed that, before standing up the NCAA, she needed to build a coalition of states to oppose them, but how does a governor who has preemptively surrendered build a coalition of resistance?
It soon emerged that Noem’s chief behind-the-scenes advisor was a lobbyist who had been hired to try to bring an NCAA tournament to South Dakota. Mollie Hemingway tweeted:
Noem's "top advisor" is "controversial behind-the-scenes power broker" Matt McCaulley. Clients include Sanford Health, which owns Sanford Sports Complex, a Sioux Falls arena that hopes to lure NCAA tourneys. Lawmakers worried about conflict of interest.
This badly conflicted attorney was telling Noem that South Dakota could not win a lawsuit against the NCAA. But that was very bad advice. As Margot Cleveland of the Federalist reported, even the possibility that the NCAA would sue South Dakota was grotesquely overblown:
Noem’s explanation would lead one to believe that H.B. 1217 conflicts in some way with the governing regulations of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and that if the bill became law, South Dakota collegiate athletes would be barred from competing in NCAA events and tournaments.
To the contrary, NCAA regulations provide that if a male competes on a female team, that makes the team a “mixed team,” which is ineligible to compete for a women’s NCAA championship. The NCAA does, however, allow a male “student-athlete being treated with testosterone suppression medication for Gender Identity Disorder or gender dysphoria and/or Transsexualism,” to compete on a women’s team after “completing one calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment.”
However, nothing in this NCAA policy requires a college or university to treat a male student-athlete as female. Given the number of religiously affiliated colleges and universities participating in NCAA sports, any such mandate would face tough opposition and likely be unworkable.
The NCAA also does not ban collegiate athletes from events or championship competitions if their schools do not allow transgender athletes to compete on teams of the opposite sex. That is why, when Idaho passed a bill last year similar to the bill pending in South Dakota, nothing of the sort happened to Idaho.
But Noem’s performance was strong compared to that of Asa Hutchinson, governor of Arkansas. The Arkansas state legislature passed a measure banning the chemical castration of children, i.e., giving children hormone blockers in an attempt to prevent them developing the secondary sex characteristics of their birth sex.
Hutchinson, mumbled and fumbled and seemed to argue that Ronald Reagan’s brand of conservatism was actually a radical libertarianism in which parents and doctors should be free to mutilate and chemically castrate minor children. Tucker wasn’t buying it:
Hutchinson is governor of the state where Wal-Mart, one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world, was founded and has its headquarters. He is essentially a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Walton family.
The Republican Party traditionally has been more friendly to big business, and it still appears to be a Republican instinct to give close ear to, and accommodate, big business interests. What Republican governors like Noem and Hutchinson don’t seem to understand is that big business is now aligned with the Democrats; they are playing for the other team, and Republicans should look with extreme suspicion on everything big business advocates. Big business—big tech, big sports, big media, and big government—are all now pushing the remorseless and satanic war against the created sexual order. Anyone who would defend traditional morality, or the created order on sex and gender, had best be extremely cautious about what is advocated by business and commercial interests.
I am reminded of Ellen White’s wise counsel about political parties. "We cannot with safety vote for political parties." We cannot place our trust in political parties. We must vote for individuals on the basis of discrete moral issues. Yes, we need to vote to defend the created sexual order, but we cannot rely upon someone having an “R” behind their name. That is no guarantee that that candidate or officeholder is on the right side of any given moral issue.